What Good Can I Do?

When talking to people about some of the issues we face today the most common reason I hear from people to do nothing at all is 'What good can I do? I'm just one person and my contribution will be so small it won't make a difference'.  And whilst there are some people who use this as just an excuse to do nothing, there are those who are genuinely overwhelmed by the issues we face today.  This has been coined eco-anxiety when it comes to making the decisions on what the best actions to do for climate change are.

The general idea is that one action carried out by one person will be engulfed by the overall inaction of everyone else.  In which case, why waste the effort at all.  But I don't entirely agree with this idea and here's my reasoning why.

1. The effect of your behaviour and actions on their own could be small, but if they inspire others to follow the same then the knock on effect can actually be quite large.  Just look at Greta Thunberg and the climate strikes she has inspired across the world.  While there is the unfortunate possibility that these strikes will have little affect on changing Government policies, they will inspire people to change aspects of their behaviour that, collectively, will have a larger impact.  I've also noticed this in my life and the choice I've made to become an almost (work in progress) dairy-free vegetarian.  I'm not militant about it nor do I try and push it onto others, but people naturally have questions and they especially have questions when it comes to the very physical job I manage to do without meat (apparently the one thing you need to by physical).  When they find out that I'm healthy and happy, that I have no problem doing the work I do, and how easy and tasty the dishes that I make are they want to try it too.  They don't necessarily go completely vegetarian, but they do end up adding vegetarian dishes to their meals and cutting back on the amount of meat they eat, which environmentally still makes a difference. 
2. You may not be able to act directly for a cause or action you believe in, but you can support those who are.  Most of us in the western world are in a fortunate position to be able to make a financial donation to one or more of the variety of charities available to us.  Whilst on our own we wouldn't be able to make provide the necessary funds to make a difference, our smaller individual donations are all part of supporting the work they do and without it the organisations wouldn't be able to function at all.  It's a little contribution to us, but it makes a big difference to someone else. 
3. If we've learnt nothing else from Brexit (though lets face it, there's a lot to learn from Brexit) the one thing we have learnt is what a difference a vote can make.  Studies that came out after the voting took place showed that around 35% of Britains didn't actually vote and, if everyone had voted, then the likely results would have been 50.35% in favour of remaining (https://ukandeu.ac.uk/what-if-everyone-had-voted-in-the-eu-referendum/).  Obviously this is not conclusive, if it had happened that way then the last 3 years would have been very different.  Today, especially with the types of politicans we have at the moment, we often think that voting is really a bit pointless and won't produce any positive changes to the way our lives are.  But Brexit has clearly shown each vote really did make a difference, and not necessarily for the better. 
4. Recently I've been coming across a lot of articles about how being kind to people has a positive impact on the giver, which would make it a worthwhile action in its own right (my favourite article on this comes from the Random Acts of Kindness website).  But as a way of making a positive change in the world it's actually been shown to be quite effective. Those who have acts of kindness shown to them are much more likely to then act kindly themselves in their behaviour and decision making.  Not only does this have a cascading affect, as in the person you are nice to are more likely to be nice to multiple people who will themselves be nice to multiple people (as shown here), but people will also be kinder even if they don't actually receive the act themselves but see it happening to someone else.  In otherwords, acts of kindness are contagious.   So, that one little act you might think is insignificant and impactless can actually have a very large affect on the world around you.

When you think about everything that is wrong in the world and all the things you would need to do to fix them completely it can be very overwhelming.  It may even make you not want to try at all.  But even just little behaviours and actions can make a difference.  And, even if it turns out that my actions don't have as a big a impact as I would hope, I'd still rather know that I had actually tried than have done nothing at all.